Those who want you to doubt that anarchy (self ownership and individual responsibility) is the best, most moral, and ethical way to live among others are asking you to accept that theft, aggression, superstition, and slavery are perhaps better.

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

"Support him no longer"- how does it look and how can it change things?

I'd like to share another Facebook conversation. Or at least my response to an honest question. This one is quite a bit less hostile than the last one.

I was pointing out that the best solution to the violent government extremists is to stop supporting them.

“Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces.”― Étienne de La Boétie

It also helps if you can get over the superstitious belief in "authority".

"What would that look like in practice, and how would it change things?"

In practice, it wouldn't look too much different to casual observers. That's because it is mostly an absence of certain behaviors rather than a presence of new behaviors.

You would stop wasting time pledging allegiance, thanking troops, writing congress to beg for a change in "laws". You would stop harboring worship for cops, politicians, and other government extremists in your heart, but you wouldn't replace it with fear or hatred (ideally), either. You'd recognize bad people are out there looking for an opportunity to violate you, and that this is not going to change no matter what justification the particular bad guys use. Just focus on avoiding them and protecting yourself from them. You would stop worrying about whether something is "legal" and focus instead on whether it is right.

I am still as polite to a cop I pass on the street as I am to any other aggressive gang member wearing his colors. I'm not looking for trouble, and don't ever intend to start it. But I don't pretend they are the good guys or somehow legitimate in the counterfeit rules they enforce. They are the same as any mobster or MS-13 gang member, except that they believe you owe them gratitude for existing. It's pretty funny if you think about it.

How would it change things?

I can only tell you how it has changed things in my life. I am much less frustrated. I don't expect government to act differently than it is designed to act. I don't expect it to rescue me, or protect me. I don't get angry when it gets in my way any more than I get angry at the wind or mosquitoes. I see statists (those who believe governing others to be a legitimate human endeavor) getting really angry or shocked over things government does. I see them putting all their hope in electing new gang members in the hope it will change the nature of the gang- in spite of all of human history to the contrary. I feel bad for them. How can they expect things to act against their own nature? It's not the individual people in the office that are the problem, it is the existence of the office. You shouldn't have an "official town rapist", no matter who you choose to fill the post. The same applies to every government position.

If it works in others as it has worked in me, it would change things as fewer people are willing to lower themselves to work for government, or to support those who do. It would cause people to stop looking to government when trouble crops up, but to find ways to solve it without violating others. Eventually, perhaps, people would find government as "necessary" as bicycles for fish.

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"I don't get angry when it gets in my way any more than I get angry at the wind or mosquitoes."

I love the whole paragraph this sentence is in. But, what have you got against wind? Am I the only one who loves to stand out in the wind with a feeling of complete exhilaration? (I do draw the line at wind too strong to stand up in ;-) )

I enjoy the wind until it is getting in the way of things I want to do. Or is super hot or filled with grit. Which is a lot of the time in this locality. When I have lived in places where my day wasn't determined by how much wind there would be, I liked the wind more.